Machine Dust Covers

Some of my machines were still missing a proper dust cover. Since I don´t approve of the plastic covers, I made them something nicer. :)

For the Janome CoverPro CPX 1000 aka Cornelia, I made quilted stripey cover in green and white shades:

For stripes I used 100% cotton fabrics for quilting.

I used two home dec fabrics and a lace fabric on top for one side...

... and one home dec fabric, duchess satin and lace fabric on top for the other one. Satin ribbons are topstitched.

Details of decorative topstitching sewn on Henrietta. I used topstitch and embroidery threads.

For Singer 221K Featherweight aka Fiona, I made cover and some accessories. Foot control is stored in its own draw-string bag. Flip-table has its own cover since it hits the screw on the face-plate while turned up and that can scratch the table.

Cover turned upside down turns into a storage bag that fits into Fiona´s case. No scratches on my machine while pulling it out of the case. ;)

Dust cover/ storage bag with hand quilted hexagons. 

Union Jack cushion I designed last year got finally finished too! Blue triangles are replaced with little brown hexagons fitted into the triangles. Diagonal red stripes are topstitched with decorative stitches.

Singer 201K

As soon as I read the history about the Singer 201K, I knew I had to have one. Just to pick up some of the stories:

"Possibly the best machine Singer has ever made..." 

This machine was presented to HRH Princess Elisabeth as a wedding gift in 1947. 

Also it is rumored that Rolls Royce used these machines for some of their upholstery.

I searched and searched the local auction websites, but it seemed like this machine was nowhere to be found. I saw one in a treadle but hesitated to get it since I don´t have a room for another treadle. And I really wanted electric machine to see what all the fuss was about. :) Finally I saw an advert for "some old Singer sewing machine" and immediately recognized the 201. In a couple of hours the machine was mine. And (again) I foolishly went to pick it up without a trolley. Good Heavens this machine is super heavy! I only managed to carry it 8 steps at a time. Seriously, not what you would call a portable machine. ;) 

And here she is, meet Agatha:

Singer 201K made in Great Britain in 1936. I named her Agatha since most of Hercule Poirot films are situated in this year.

And now the problem, Agatha hasn´t been used for decades. All of her wiring was falling apart. I guess you can expect that from an 80 years old machine.

Light wiring after we took the lamp off.

The whole machine was taken apart, cleaned and rewired. Motor got lubricated and the machine got oiled properly.

Motor taken apart before cleaning and rewiring. The carbon brushes haven´t been worn out, so we didn´t replace them with new ones. I´ll have to order new ones just in case as I plan to use this machine a lot. :)

Here she is after the job was done. Ready to sew.

Agatha has beautiful ornamented face-plate. I saw the same ornament on some early Featherweight machines. My 1955 Featherweight Fiona has striped face-plate so I´m happy I got this one on Agatha.

Plug with new wiring. This model has a knee bar instead of a foot control. I cannot operate the knee bar due to my tiny sewing table. It doesn´t fit. But the plug is identical with the one Fiona has and her foot control works on Agatha well! Happy me :)

Even the motor cover is embellished with decals. It is a shame they don´t put decals on machines anymore. In my opinion the modern machines have a serious lack of grace. And they´re white! Why?

Beautiful trademark and the stitch length dial. This machine is famous for it´s precise stitches. Oh, and it sews backwards too, isn´t it great? ;)

I´m really happy I got this machine and it is now in a working order. I hope she´ll serve me years. I plan to sew most of straight stitch seams on her...

Summer is on the way!

Long time, no see... I was sewing a lot past time, but as I was so caught in sewing and getting my projects done, I somehow forgot to take the pictures. So I couldn´t really post any progress on this blog. Well, I´ll have to try better this aspect of creative process ;)

So, I finally took a few pictures of some of the projects I´ve made past two months, some are still untaken...

I made my first pyjamas! The pattern is from last year´s December issue of Burda. I used cotton flannel fabric and instead of piping I used (again) lace trim. I´m quite happy with it, I´ll make more nightwear in the future.

Detail of a pocket with iron-on patch.

Detail of a sleeve with lace trim. 

Asymetrical wrap-around skirt from January issue of Burda. This was super easy and quick sew. The skirt is fastend up with two buttons. I used slightly stretchy jacquard fabric.

Front edges are supported with petersham ribbon. The pattern suggest to leave all edges unfinished but I´m not a fan of frayed unfinished edges so I used my Bebe overlocker to finish all edges and hem as well.

Maxi dress in linen-cotton blend fabric. Dress is fully lined. Pattern is from last year´s April issue of Burda. This was quite a complicated pattern, it had many pieces and lining pieces had to be attached to main pieces separately rather then finished lining against finished garment. But it was fun. I have a fabric for another one. ;)  I entered "Summer´s most adorable outfit" sewing competition with this dress. Is it a winner? ;)

Detail of a bustier. Tiny heart shaped buttons and loops and of course a lace trim!

Back of the dress is knotted.

Satin blouse with gathered neck and sleeves from Burda 11/2013 and lace skirt from Burda 3/2013.

Jacquard dress with petersham ribbon embellishment from Burda 3/2013.

Antique Singer 27K "La Vencendora"

 I have been looking for an antique Singer treadle for a while. Most of the treadles available here are vintage, made about 1926 and later. I thought I will never come across a machine that would be older than this. After an exhausting battle of bidding I won this beauty in an auction.

Singer 27K with "La Vencendora" decals. I named her Dora.

Dora was made in Great Britain in 1910 and after that she spent whole her life in Helsinki. She had two owners in the same family before she was sold to me. The previous owner took a great care of her, there wasn´t much dust to clean and after oiling her properly she runs splendidly!

Dora has a beautiful grapevine face-plate. 27K has a low shank so it will be easy to attach various presser feet on her.

Singer 27K is one of the "Vibrating Shuttle" models, Vibrating Shuttle No.2. Dora had her original shuttle and one bobbin with her. If you are buying an antique treadle machine, it is always good to check that it has the shuttle with it. There have been four shuttle models (VS-1, VS-2 & VS-3, 27 & 28, 127 & 128), each had a small change added. I have 27 type shuttle that had added wasp waist.

One bobbin wasn´t going to be enough and luckily I found the exact bobbin type on the internet and ordered 20 of them from America. They came in two weeks, quite fast!

New bobbin next to the original one and the "bullet shuttle" with wasp waist.

Wooden cover was in a good condition. It misses one hinge and the lock doesn´t have a key, but those are minor defects. 

Beautiful ornamented cast iron legs and treadle. 

Beaded Jewelry & Vintage Nightshirt

 After a long pause, I decided to make some jewelry for a change. I find making jewelry very relaxing. But on the other hand, so is sewing, knitting etc. ;) I like combining colors and shapes though I usually end up with tone to tone jewelry. I think it is much easier to match the clothes, especially if you are already wearing a patterned dress.

So here´s what I´ve been up to past few days:

I´ve had this selection of red beads for about a year and a half. The selection hasn´t just bright red shades, but also coral and brick shades, which I didn´t like that much. All in all I wasn´t very inspired to use these beads in my projects. Browsing beading books I got the idea to combine these red beads with hot pink and silver beads. I like the vibrant and warm outcome. I will be wearing these beads after all!

I bought this butterfly glass pendant couple of months ago and now I really wanted to use it in some jewelry. This is my own assemble and it uses the same colors as the butterfly: purple, lavender, bronze and black. 

I made one similar pendant bracelet like this before using instructions from a book Vintage-Style Jewelry by Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell. I bought the glass beads specially for this project. The previous bracelet was made using light pink and lavender beads with silver chain. While I was making this one, I figured I´m making exactly the same bracelet using exactly the same color palette. So I quickly added dark purple bicone beads to make the appearance darker and more purple than the other bracelet.

The idea for this set came from a book Designing Bead & Wire Jewelry by Renata Graham. The book has a picture with a necklace similar to this one. I loved it! The gold-amber shades and the idea how the beads are "locked" in small groups using the wire. I had to have it, so I bought these beads specially for this set. The book doesn´t have instructions for this necklace but it was easy to figure it out from the picture.

This Victorian style necklace is from a book A Beading Romance by Kelly Wiese. All the projects in this book are made using beading thread and a needle. This is a first piece of jewelry I used this method on. It is not difficult but it takes practice. The individual rings of beads are made and then connected together. 

And some sewing of course ;) This is a Vintage Nightshirt from December 2014 issue of Burda magazine. I plan to make the whole collection of nightwear from this magazine. This nightshirt has A-line and a large pleat in back. 

The letters are embroidered by hand since I haven´t try yet the darning presser foot on any of my machines...

I used a contrasting dark red lace trim instead of matching satin binding.

Singer 221K Featherweight

One of my favorite vintage models is Singer Featherweight. They are very popular among quilters and seamstresses. Because of their compact size they´re easy to bring along to sewing classes etc. And I mean it is in fact possible to bring them along, not like other models advertised as "portable" but even lifting them on the table feels like a hard labor. Gerda is one of those machines...

I was lucky enough to come across this beauty and didn´t hesitate to bring her home with me. Here she is:

Singer 221K Featherweight "Fiona"

Back view of the machine.

Fiona was made in Great Britain in 1955 and had only one owner before me. Previous owner took a good care of her. 

I cleaned her thoroughly and oiled and lubricated all parts as the manual suggests. Her rubber feet were strangely melted, so I had to scratch them away and for the moment I have replaced them with some felt protectors. I bought new rubber feet which I will install on her later at some point. 

Fiona has her original motor. And still runs strong! I think I will have to buy a new belt though, the original one seems to be a little worn out place to place.

MADE IN GREAT BRITAIN <3 

This really means a lot to me.

Lovely trademark in gold...

Detail of the face-plate and the upper needle tension dial. 

Featherweight has vertical bobbin case and uses special Featherweight type bobbins. Unfortunately Fiona had only one bobbin with her. I will have to put in an order for more bobbins...

Fiona has her original case. Good thing I don´t have to order that one!

These attachments came with the machine: the hemming foot, the binder, the edge-stitcher, the ruffler, the adjustable hemmer and the gathering foot. 

And an automatic zig-zag attachment with a manual in swedish. Which I will have to crack at some point...

Machine itself had her original manual in finnish.

Booklet is in very good condition, although tiny for my taste. I´m really tempted to print the english version in size A4 as I have printed for other vintage machines. We´ll see...